SOCIALIST APPEAL MAY 4, 1940 Behind the Lines Refugees Forced To Join Army In France (Recently the French government announced that German anti Nazi refugees France were no longer being kept in concentration camps.
The Social Democratie Federation New Leader, the Jewish Daily Forward and other war mongerers of the democratic variety proceeded to adduce the French action as another example of the virtues of democracy. Just what was in volved in the French decision, however, is revealed by the following report received from our comrades in France Editors. 4.
Slip of the Tongue In the World of Labor 12.
11 The SUP and NMU as securely established as that of the SUP. The The Allies have so far wanted Hitler to take upon himself the SOCIALIST APPEAL joint statement of the shipowners and Curran onus of starting the war in the merely termed it temporary additional compenair against the big cities and inVol. IV, No. 18 Saturday, May 4, 1940 sation. What does that mean? It means that the dustrial centers. Like Hitler, they WAR IS NOT WHODUNNIT MYSTERY; SUP still carries the brunt of the battle as long Published Weekly by the have been willing to accept a tacit live and let live policy in this SOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASS as the SUP can maintain its wages and condiWE KNOW WHO GUILTY dangerous domain.
at 116 University Place, New York, Telephone: Algonquin 8547 tions, the East Coast shipowners are not likely to By GEORGE STERN They may be trying now to withdraw the temporary additional compensagoad Hitler into starting for, Editorial Board tion just that long and no longer.
as Augur cynically puts it, When crooks fall out, most of systematic in matters of esplFELIX MORROW ALBERT GOLDMAN that would clarify the internal This situation simply reveals more clearly the dope they begin to spill about onage and preparing an inva position here. Of course the General Manager: what has been true for a long time that the each other is usually true. The sion. This is a case of the kettle first German raid on London or GEORGE CLARKE militant SUP establishes the standards aboard same goes for the imperialist war, calling the pot black. The Nazis Parls or any other British or which is a falling out of crooks simply proved themselves bet French civilian center would ships and the NMU gets some of the gravy with on a grand scale.
ter sples, better organizers of abruptly end humanitarian inSubscriptions: 00 per year: 00 for six months. out working for it. Not all the gravy, not by far. The Nazis issued on April 27 an invasion. And they moved hibitions. The Chamberlain. 00 per year, 50 for six months. Bundle West Coast conditions aboard ship are far sua series of documents which they faster. The Norwegians were doubts and ministerial troubles cents per copy in the United States: cents said they had seized in Norway simply sacrificed to the necesperior to the East Coast, because the union hirwould disappear.
per copy in all foreign countries. Single coples: centa.
These documents included detail sities of the belligerent impering hall is the ONLY hiring hall on the Wested British army orders and naval ialist general staffs.
In this, as in the invasion of Coast, whereas on the East Coast the NMU lead intelligence reports which showed From out of the maze of charg Norway or the war as a whole. Reentered a second clnas matter December 1989, at the post office at New York, under the ership didn fight back and permitted the that the Allies had planned to es, counter charges, denials, and it is not a question of who Aet of March 3, 1879.
invade Norway on April and counter denials, one thing starts it. The war, and all the Maritime Commission to establish its fink halls.
and were only forestalled by the emerges pretty plainly. Both invasions and barbarities, all the Moreover, a clause in a contract means only what speedier moves of the Nazis them sides had detailed and long pre slaughter and hunger, is an erupselves.
the union makes it to mean. Whereas the SUP pared plans for fighting their bat tion of capitalist society itself.
According to these docu tle across Noway. When the stra Nobody ever thinks of asking who Fight with the Socialist Workers sees to it that every clause gives the Seamen evments, British troops were ne tegic moment arrived both sides starts the convulsions far beerything it can mean, the NMU leadership, cor tually already en route to Nor. tried to put their plans into oper. low the earth surface which hit Party for: rupted by Stalinism to the core, makes every way on April It is claimed ation. The Nazis got there first us in the form of earthquakes or that the Nazis, moving in, The Allies are still trying to volcanic eruptions. We know they JOB AND DECENT LIVING FOR EVERY conceivable concession to the shipowner if only bombed and sank a number of catch up and from all accounts so are started by deep lying and WORKER he will help them collect dues.
British transports which had far aren doing too well.
deep moving processes within the OPERATE OPEN THE IDLE FACTORIES Yet these same Stalinist scoundrels have had got word too late to turn back earth itself.
And it is probably because THEM UNDER WORKERS CONTROL on April they are not doing so well that So with the war. To the the gall to attempt to poison the minds of the The documents detall espionage ominous talk is beginning to workers of the world all the TWENTY. BILLION DOLLAR FEDERAL PUBLIC WORKS AND HOUSING PROGRAM.
workers against the SUP and its leadership. work carried out over a period of come out of London about rulers of all the powers are With all the resources at the command of Stalin months by the British preliminary starting the war in the air. Au equally responsible for this boss THIRTY. THIRTY 30. WEEKLY MINIMUM ism, they have sought to destroy the SUP. The to invasion. In view of what ac gur, who puts out most of the war. Who starts this or that is WAGE 30 HOUR WEEKLY MAXIMUM FOR tually happened, von Ribbentrop British government feelers in matter of chance. What we ALL WORKERS ON ALL JOBS.
latest victory of the SUP is an annihilating was probably being ironic when this country, sent a dispatch to have to get at is the root of 30 WEEKLY OLD. AGE AND DISABILITY answer to the Stalinists.
he said the British had prepared the New York Times on April war itself and that is the capevery detail of the landing and 29 which contained a strong italist system of private proPENSION deployment of troops in an aston hint that Chamberlain and perty and profit. Destroy that EXPROPRIATE THE SIXTY FAMILIES.
ishingly systematic way through Churchill might try to ward off and you ll put out the fires of an espionage organization. criticism of the Norwegian set.
ALL WAR FUNDS TO THE UNEMPLOYED.
war. The world will be a safer, It was the Nazis who showed backs by opening up an aerial saner place only when the capi8. PEOPLE REFERENDUM ON ANY AND the way to the British in me offensive against Germany it talist volcano is extinguished ALL WARS, thods of being astonishingly self.
forever. NO SECRET DIPLOMACY.
Last Tuesday at a hearing of the Interstate 10. AN INDEPENDENT LABOR PARTY.
Commerce Commission occurred one of those 11. WORKERS DEFENSE GUARDS AGAINST slips of the tongue which reveal to the AmeriVIGILANTE AND FASCIST ATTACKS can workers and to the whole people how far FULL SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC our rulers have gone in planning to plunge us EQUALITY FOR THE NEGRO PEOPLE By Paul Stevens into war.
George Randall, head of the general com British Trotskyist Reports mittee on port traffic of the Association of On the Struggle in his Country Chinese Section Unanimous for American railroads, revealed in his slip that We had the pleasure this week of meeting face Political Position of plans are already complete for embarking 2, 000. to face with a British comrade. His report un We publish herewith an extract from a let000 American soldiers or more onto ships in covered a mass of information that has never yet ter of March 18 received from China, from a New York harbor on their way to overseas war seen public print. We submit herewith a few leading member of the Communist League of notes jotted down hastily by our comrade from China, Section of the Fourth International: fronts.
The Sailors Union of the Pacific has come Britain; further notes will be published next The Russian events caused a division in the Here is the account as given in the New York ranks here, but now its more or less comthrough again with a victory. Despite all that the Herald. Tribune. Amongst the Trade Unions, the desire for posed. After long and earnest debates. the shipowners and the Maritime Commission retention of our old position of unconditional more militant leadership is making itself mantcould do, despite the treachery of the Bridges The witness had mentioned that shipments fest. This can be best shown by the fact that in defense finally triumphed, leaving an opposiin the harbor currently were at two thirds of machine which divided the water front crafts and certain trades and industries the workers them tional minority of one in the Central Committhe World War peak and that, through his com selves have already set up their own job organ tee and he has now come over. We had setpreached its Five Year Peace Plan when strike mittee planning, no congestion had occurred.
izations. The Railway Vigilance Committee move tled the question when the first minority docuvotes were needed, the strike machinery of the ment, the Shop Stewards movement in the en Weren the conditions then complicated by ments arrived from the USA. Later came LD. Sailors gained its objective. flat raise of ten gineering trades, and the tendency towards grow contributions to the discussion. We all felt embarkation of a large army? Mr. Hickey ing criticism of the reactionary Labour and gratified that, unaided, we had arrived at a dollars a month and ten cents an hour overtime asked.
leaders are all indications of the growing con correct position. And even more so, at the raise for all ratings were wrested from the shipsciousness of the British workers. Yes, replied Mr. Randall.
fresh demonstration of the incomparable adowners by the Sailors in a struggle in which the Something like 2, 000, 000 troops embarked The Second Imperialist War finds the workvantages of the Marxian method. will confess that was somewhat amazed at the ideoSailors had to fight a lone battle.
ers for the most part apathetic. There is a comfrom New York?
If the Sailors had to fight alone, nevertheless plete absence of jingoism and a genuine desire for logical bankruptcy which the minority docu believe so.
peace, but as yet, this has not developed a politicments displayed. Such miserable argumentatheir victory was not for them alone. The fact is tion we have not seen in our ranks in many a That same condition, of course does not apal character. Thus, the petty bourgeois that the SUP has won a victory for all seamen long day. Peace Pledge Union) and the pacifist section of ply now?
on both coasts. It was a foregone conclusion that the are for the moment gaining strength.
No, but we have the plans set up, Mr. Ran At a later stage the Fourth International groups if the shipowners were compelled to give in to dall said.
will increase their strength, to replace the influGorkin Greets the Party which the SUP demands, that would set a standard for To move 2, 000, 000 men? asked Mr. Hickey.
ence of the pacifists with a militant, revolution Endorsed Crushing of Barcelona the SUP sister unions on the Pacific aboard ary anti war movement.
Our centrist friends seem to have a knack for To move whatever number may be necesship the Marine Firemen and the Cooks and Re: the official Labor Party: the Stalinist supplying bitter irony in the spectacle they make sary, Mr. Randall responded.
Stewards. But the SUP also won the wage raise hemselves.
fraction working within the Labor Party have The subject was dropped immediately. been withdrawn through the collapse of Popular We read in the Socialist Call of April 20: for the National Maritime Union on the East Frontism, with the result that genuine revolution From the Spanish Socialists in exile came Coast.
ists can now work better in the Labor Party for greetings to the SP convention) in the person of Last January the National Maritime Union the overthrow of the National Government. Julian Gorkin, secretary of the POUM, whose members were decimated in the Loyalist struggle signed a poor contract for a two year period, ef The conscientious objector tribunals have already dealt with over 10, 000 objectors. This shows by both Franco Fascists and Stalinists.
that there is widespread opposition to the war Is it not indeed odd to see the representative reopening of the wage clause on July of this of the POUM (Workers Party of Marxist Unificaamongst the youth. The grounds of objection year. In other words, the wage clause still had revolutionary anti war program MUST stated are showing a growing political conscious tion. which participated on the side of the workers barricades in the 1937 May Day struggles at two months to run, and what more nobody in say: The warring imperialist powers are all ness among the masses.
Barcelona, hailing the convention of the SP? At the NMU leadership had made a peep about get equally reactionary in their war aims. Lenin The Labour League of Youth, who are, or.
were, an auxiliary to the Labour Party, are mostthat time, the SP brazenly endorsed the Stalinist ting tough with the shipowners on July taught us the importance of that proposition. He action of crushing these same barricades in blood ly adherents of the Fourth International and are Their fellow member of the Second International, At 11 a. Friday, April 26, the Pacific ship showed how any program that starts making dis putting up a strong fight against Young ComLargo Caballero, was then sharing his governowners capitulated and conceded the SUP de tinctions between the imperialists ends up eventumunist League fakers, especially in the large facmental portfolios with the henchmen of the tories. The LLY. has quite a few members on mands. The next day Joseph Curran, president ally by supporting one of the imperialist powers.
Kremlin the Youth Advisory Councils of certain unions.
of the National Maritime Union, requested an Apply this acid test to two of the anti war Nay, it is more than odd, it is more than ironical. The spokesmen of the National Government It is simply a desecration of the memory of the opportunity to reopen the wage clause at once, programs those of the Communist party and have already warned the workers that anything heroic POUM militants who laid down their lives saying that a wage increase granted to West the Norman Thomas Socialist party.
in the nature of a rise in wages corresponding in that struggle. Their spirit was present at the Coast seamen would create a dangerous differen The Stalinists reveal their cloven hoof in their with prices need not be expected. This has given convention of the Socialist Workers Party, of the rise to great resentment and even the Labour Trotskyists, who unflinchingly sided with the tial (New York Times, May The NMU got May Day manifesto, when they say: Conse Party has been forced to register a protest for Barcelona barricade fighters, not only against the a raise now for only one reason: the SUP had quently British imperialism has today become the the sake of saving their faces.
Stalinists but we were then in the SP against set the standard.
chief center of world reaction and the chief inNorman Thomas and Co. Their spirit was repre The No Conscription League is a pacifist body Even the Stalinists couldn wiggle around this stigator for extending the imperialist war into a with an LL. tingle and has been active in the sented at our convention by Grandizo Munis, the Fourth Internationalist militant who remains fact, but had to admit: The granting of a 10 world war. If Britain is the chief, that means electoral campaigns. There have been two recent by elections for Parliament held, in spite of the true to his fallen comrades in Spain and carries raise to West Coast seamen, speeded the move to Nazi Germany is less reactionary, less of an in political truce which the Labour Party decided on their fight, not with their betrayers but with bring a similar raise here. Daily Worker, May their comrades everywhere.
stigator of war and serves to justify support of upon so that the war could be carried on without Nazi Germany. obstruction. In one election, the secretary of the Death Penalty for French ComBritish Harry Pollitt, was utterly defeated.
Every East Coast and Gulf seaman should Norman Thomas reveals where he is going This election was fought in Battersea, London, munists is Decreed by Government ponder this fact, that he has the militant SUP when, commenting on the war resolution adopted which was the first constituency in England to UP dispatch from Paris on April 28 carries membership and leadership to thank for his by his recent convention, he says: By no means return a Communist in 1924.
the following report: raise. He should ponder it because it is the suffi do we Socialists who take this position (against The other election was held at Manchester, the To aid the police in their hard fight against cient answer to all the vile slanders which the American entry) affirm cquality of guilt of all Conservatives winning the seat. The significant an underground organization possessing infact about this election was that a Stalinist who numerable clandestine printing shops, thousStalinist leadership of the NMU has heaped up belligerents, or that there is difference be opposed the war was defeated along with an ands of agents in the public services and facon the SUP. He should ponder it because this tween imperialism, or that we don care who er. However, the er polled 5000 votes tories, the government recently instituted the victory is an inkling of what the American seadeath penalty for Communists and other wins. We do not say what we would do if we and the er just over 1000. wreckers.
men could have, if they were united in one na were caught in the tragic position of English or worked in military camps and spoke to But, in reality, the death penalty hits not so tional seamen union fighting on the basis of a French Socialists. The Call, April 27)
young recruits and found that they are definitely much at the Kremlin tools who head the French not concerned with the war and smashing Fasmilitant program like that of the SUP. If the but at the devoted and self sacrificing rank From this, to saying that America has reached cism. There are various complaints about food, and Ale militants whom they have deceived and sheer militancy and intelligent strategy of the the same tragic position as Thomas war mon equipment and restrictions placed upon the civil ten times betrayed. For the leaders can always 5000 members of the SUP could win such a gering comrades of England and France, is but ian population because of general rise in prices escape to Moscow, but the masses of loyal Jimmy victory for all seamen both coasts, what could a step.
and no corresponding rise in wages.
Higginses have no refuge anywhere. More than Scores of resolutions have been sent in by un that, the new decree the dispatch also talks of be done by the same militancy, the same strategy, Norman Thomas and the Stalinists are calling ions calling for an immediate international con other wreckers (read: revolutionists) is diif every seaman strength were mobilized in one each other hard names these days. But they are ference and also to call the war off by the North rected not merely at the Communist rank and united union!
birds of a feather. They are simply on different Wales District Railroad Council, South Wales file, but also against the valiant partisans of the Miners Fed. the Dundee Jute Workers, Glasgow Fourth International as well as against all other The wage raise for the NMU is by no means sides in the war.
Dockers, etc. etc.
active anti war fighters.
PARIS, March, 1940 The concentration camps for German refugees in France have been liquidated, Their former occupants have either departed for service in Africa in the Foreign Legion or have been interned in special camps pending their incorporation in the forced labor brigades On September 5, 1939, when the call for German refugees to concentrate was published, thousands of refugees stormed the gates at the Colombe Stadium.
Most of them had to decide to serve France one fashion or another and all were of the opinion that it was a matter of sifting out the Nazis among the refugees which could not last more than a few days.
Treated Like Criminals Even at the very entrance to the Stadium, the refugees began to realize their mistake. For they were treated like imprisoned criminals. Knives and blades, safety razors, stiluses, instruments for opening tins, pocket searchlights, etc. were confiscated. Nourishment consisted of bread and paste for fifteen days. In the Stadium, sleeping quarters were set up under the open skies, in spite of the worst kind of weather.
The German doctor, who was responsible to the French medical service and to whom the refugee doctors were subordinate, was a Nazi. In the course of fifteen days at the Colombe Stadium, where the first batch of men from 18 to 50 years of age and the second batch of men from 51 to 68 were interned, two men had to be evacuated to insane asylums. From the Colombe, the internees were sent to Blois and set up in a circus tent. It was only from here that they were finally after ten days distributed to more or less permanent camps.
These small camps contain each about 300 refugees and are installed in small villages. The internees sleep on thin layers of straw in granges and barns, without electricity, without windows, and have as their only sources of light and air the entrance door. Up to this moment no medical examination has been undertaken and the sick and suffering, have been confined among those who are well. An infirmary, is installed in a small abandoned house and the only means that it has at its disposal are those which the internees can procure themselves. the head of the infirmary is a refugee physician who enjoys neither power of evacuating those gravely ill nor of furnishing them hospitalization. French military doctor in charge visita the camp once in three to five days, for about five minutes to a quarter of an hour. After two months of internment, obvious tubercular cases, epileptics, complete war invalids, had not been evacuated.
Forced into the Foreign Legion From the first week of internment on, a most intense pressure was exercised upon the internees to accept five years enrollment in the Foreign Legion.
This pressure was intensified more and more; those interned were treated by the command officers of the camp and his officers as enemy subjects and dirty Huns.
Under the pretext that it was a matter of voluntary service some of the men, including those ill, were lent out to the peasants as farmhands and agricultural workers and returned to the camp without pay, without clothes, complete wrecks.
In November, the appeal for a five year enrollment was reduced in favor of enrollment for the duration of the war. The situation in the camps was almost intolerable because of the cold, the menacing winter and the ever more intensive pressure exerted upon the internees who feared that measures of oppression would be introduced against their families. Thus some enrolled in the Foreign Legion for African service.
They were sent to training camps. Others who refused to do service or were incapable of it, were sent to special camps for doubtful elements where they now await their incorporation in the forced labor brigade.
week: fective to Sept. 30, 1941. with a provision for Birds of a Feather An INS dispatch states that the Finnish people are so grateful for Herbert Hoover effort in raising funds for their relief that they have incorporated into their language a new word, Hooveri. which means an unexpected gift. But the addition to language for which he ll go down in history is Hoovervilles.
Archbishop John Gregory Murphy called democracy a Christian concept of government in a talk af Columbushly meeting of the Minneapolis Knights ll take my democracy plain. At least here one can vote (sometimes) for the candidate one wants; while in the Christian Kingdom of Heaven the rulers are self appointed and hold office in perpetuity.
When Prime Minister Chamberlain inspected the British forces in France he created a sensation when he refused to take time off for tea. In these days, he said, haven time to take tea. It seems to me have lost the habit. Well, everyone changes his habits during wartime: the bosses and their stooges lose tea; the workers, their lives. WAR OVER RUSS OIL FIELDS BY TURKS FOR APRIL is the heading of a story by Edward Kennedy, AP correspondent at Istanbul, Turkey. thought the only reason war would be waged against the Soviet Union would be in the holy name of democracy and to save the world from Communism. Mrs. Walter Lamar of Macon, Ga. presidentgeneral of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
is bitter against Winston Churchill, first lord of the British admiralty, for likening the cause of the South in the Civil War to that of Nazi Germany in the present war. It is an insult, says Mrs. Lamar, to compare the southern states with Hitler and his policies. But we ve got a better come back. The British government was pro South.